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“Outage” by Rae Armantrout

Outage

1
We like to think
that the mind
controls the body.
We send the body on a mission.
We don’t feel the body,
but we receive conflicting reports.
The body is catching flak
or flies.
The body is sprouting grapefruit.
The body is under-
performing in heavy
trading.
2
Reception is spotty.
Someone “just like me”
is born
in the future
and I don’t feel a thing?
Like only goes so far.
—Rae Armantrout

“Outage” by Rae Armantrout from Money Shot.

Wesleyan University Press, 2011.

By permission of the author.

Rae Armantrout

Rae Armantrout (1947- ) is the author of ten books of poetry. Her collection Versed received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2009 and the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. Born in Vallejo, California, Armantrout studied at University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco State University. She is a professor of writing at the University of California, San Diego, where she directed the New Writing Series for nearly 20 years. Photo credit: Julie Dermansky.